Kenny Bates: This felt like a nice moment of serendipity

Kenny Bates, alternatively known as Quitter, is releasing self-titled album on 25th March and to promote this new album, he will be touring the breadth of Scotland, from Inverness to Glasgow.

Kenny spoke with The Fountain about Stirling’s Death Collective, the inspiration behind the name Quitter and his favourite gig to date.

TF: Exciting stuff with a new album release, you must be ecstatic?

Yeah it’s ace to finally be putting it out there, and to do all the related fun stuff – shows, designing artwork, dubbing tapes. That last one I have a definite love/hate relationship with, I burned out my old tape deck on my last album (having run a small label with tape releases before that), but I have a nice Denon deck from the year I was born now, which will be fun to use again.

TF: And what inspired the band name, Quitter?

During our France/Germany tour last autumn we were playing our first show in Lomme, waiting to soundcheck in this awesome arcade/bar/venue/cinema/sushi place called the Bobble Cafe. Craig (who plays in excellent freak folk oufit December 91), Kieran (Hughes) and myself were playing Mario Kart having had about forty minutes sleep since leaving Stirling and when I paused the game – probably to shriek in frustration and hatred at everyone – the dialogue box ‘Quitter?’ came up. Presumably French for ‘you’re shite at Mario Kart’. I was looking for a new name to go under and this felt like a nice moment and a bit of serendipity.

TF: And you are part of a collective titled The Death Collective, sounds ominous tell me more?

Yeah it’s a project devised by Craig of Dec 91 – there’s a load of people who seem to have ties to Stirling that are all home-recording diy singer-songwriter types, but who all have a significantly left-field slant stylistically. The idea is to form a collective in order to collaborate more easily, record together, put shows on among like minds, and generate a bit of interest in what’s happening in Stirling. It’s a really great place with plenty really beautiful people. We release a compilation last year, and have since started to build it up as a label too.

TF: You are based in Stirling, so I assume we can see you live around the country relatively soon?

Yep, there’s a Quitter / December 91 joint tour with stops at the following:

I feel like I played well at, and had the best time drinking beer and losing my mind watching, Graham Costello’s Strata the time they invited me to support. And from tour last year it’d likely be the house show we played in Lyon. A bunch of very friendly strangers in a flat in the city centre after a long drive in the sun, put on by friendly musicians and enthusiastic types who had their own punk radio show, and distro in their living room. Beautiful stuff.